


Temporally Displaced

by believesinponds



Series: Miscellaneous ColdWave [4]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, M/M, teenagers taking care of babies, young mick learning from his future self
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 11:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6656638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/believesinponds/pseuds/believesinponds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teenage Mick looks after baby Lenny. </p><p>[Standalone. Reaction to <i>Legends of Tomorrow</i> 1x12.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temporally Displaced

**Author's Note:**

> TEENAGE MICK TAKING CARE OF BABY LENNY THOUGH!!!!!!

Mick was not sure how to cope with this situation. One moment he was watching his home burn, his whole family stuck inside, and the next he was on some weird ship holding a baby and being threatened by the man who eerily reminded him of his father.

Nobody had explained anything. The girl he was stuck with--Sara, apparently--was all huffy and the baby in his arms wouldn’t stop whining. Mick’s thoughts were racing and the images of his mother, his father, his sister, his brothers flashed through his head furiously. He hadn’t actually heard them screaming, but he could imagine the way they sounded as the fire flicked across their skin, their hair, their clothes.

“You’re scaring the baby,” Sara said, frowning at him from her perch atop some metal crates.

“Am _not_ ,” Mick muttered. He loosened his grip on the kid and bounced him a little. “Shh. It’s okay, buddy. I’ve got you.”

He smoothed his finger down the baby’s cheek and couldn’t help but smile.

“You watch kids often?”

Mick glanced up and then pulled his eyes back to the infant in his arms. “Yeah. Got a bunch of cousins and--and two little brothers.”

 _Not anymore_ , he didn’t say.

***

Mick was used to people treating him like shit. He expected it as much as it pissed him off. And this guy had some kind of unexplainable hatred for him that he hadn’t been afraid to show. So Mick was understandably wary when the guy found him in the hallway holding a match under his palm.

“You gonna give me another ‘Don’t Burn Down the House’ speech?” he asked.

“You think by hurting yourself it’s gonna make you feel better about the fire?” the man responded.

Mick scoffed. Sounded just like his shrink. _Whatever_. “You don’t know anything about me, man.”

“Guess again, kid.” The guy stepped a little closer, but Mick did his best to ignore him. Until he said, “I’m _you_.”

What the fuck?

The man--his future self?--fed him some line about the fire not being his fault. Mick knew it was a lie.

“You were just a kid,” he pushed on. “I spent my whole life blaming you. Hating you. For something you didn’t do.”

But he _did_ do it. He lit the match, he watched it burn, he sat outside too mesmerized by the flames to call for help. He may as well have pulled a gun to all their heads.

“Why are you telling me this?”

The guy--Older Mick--looked down at his hands, tugged on his gloves. “Can’t change the thing you did, but you can change what you become. Don’t be like me. Be better.”

“ _Mick_.” One of the other men, the one holding the baby that he had been holding back on the ship, came up to them with a frown on his face. “Time to go.”

It took a moment for Mick to realize that the guy was talking to the older man, the so-called future version of himself. Older Mick (he was just going to buy the explanation for now) took the baby from the other man’s arms and brought him over.

“You watch out for little Lenny here, okay?” he said, placing the baby in Mick’s arms.

Mick bounced the baby like he had on the ship, a smile tugging at his lips. “Lenny, huh? I have a friend named Lenny. He’s my--” Mick’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment, and then his gaze shot up to the other man, the man whose piercing eyes were deeply familiar. “My partner.”

“Take care of him, kid,” the other man said, the corner of his mouth raising in a smirk. “You’re the only one who ever will.”

Mick didn’t know if he was talking about the baby or the kid he had met in juvie. Maybe both. Either way, he nodded and held little Lenny closer.

“C’mon, Mick. We got a Pilgrim to take down.”

Older Mick gave him one last look and then walked away.

***

“How’s yours doing?” Sara asked, taking the seat next to him on the couch.

Mick looked down at little Lenny. “Sleeping now. He’s kinda high maintenance.”

Sara laughed and lifted Jefferson to her shoulder, patting him firmly on his back. “Most babies are.”

“I know. Lenny’s extra difficult, though.” He smiled fondly at his little sleeping face. “Always has been.”

“Always has been? We’ve been here for four hours.”

“Yeah, but I know him. Later, I mean. When he’s older.”

Jefferson let out a loud burp. Sara laughed and wiped his face off with a cloth rag. “What do you mean? How could you know that?”

The baby scrunched up his face and started fussing quietly in his sleep. Mick bounced his legs gently and ran a finger down Lenny’s cheek. After a minute he eased back into a more peaceful slumber.

“They’re us,” he said with a shrug. “The adults, I mean. They’re us. We’re them. They wouldn’t explain it to me, but the rough-looking guy, the bald one? He’s me. And little Lenny here is my partner.”

Sara’s mouth was hanging open and Mick suspected that she didn’t believe him. Oh well. Wasn’t like it mattered, really. But then her mouth closed and her brow creased and she seemed to be considering it.

“Actually...that makes sense. The blonde woman, the one who looks _exactly_ like me, said we were sort of like family. She wouldn’t say anything else, though.”

Mick snorted. “Yeah, they’re not exactly generous with their information-sharing, are they?”

“Not exactly,” Sara said, laughing along with him. “I guess I can understand why, though, if they really are us from the future.” She reached down and pinched Jefferson’s cheeks, causing the baby to giggle happily. She was smiling. “We wouldn’t want to mess anything up by knowing about it too soon.”

Mick hummed but didn’t really agree. “Least they coulda given us some lotto numbers or something. Help us out a bit.”

Sara laughed again. “Yeah. That would’ve been nice.”

She fell quiet as she rocked Jefferson to sleep and Mick contemplated the baby sleeping on his legs. Lenny Snart. The little punk kid who had been his shadow in juvie. The guy who pulled jobs with him and always had his back. The man--they were both eighteen now, so they were _men_ \--who he couldn't keep him from staring at whenever they were in the same room.

Judging by the way their older versions had interacted, not much had really changed.

He thought about Older Mick’s parting words, his plea to be _better_. Mick wasn't sure if he could do that. He wasn't sure if there was a way to control the urges that consumed his thoughts. But as he looked down at the sleeping Lenny Snart, he told himself that he had to try. He would do the best he could. He would fight the urges and learn to cope with them and make himself a good, worthy partner.

For Lenny.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic just demanded to be written, and who was I to deny it life? :))))))  
> I may decide to make a little series about this but I don't know yet. We'll see. If you have any prompts or suggestions for this or other verses, drop them by at my [blog](http://believesinponds.tumblr.com)!


End file.
